“So you do have some sense left in that thick head of yours.”

Imril whirled as Mael materialized out of the darkness. It had always irked him that he couldn’t sense Mael, even though Mael could sense him.

But then how did one detect a being that wielded nothingness instead of power? Some aspects of his twin’s abilities had always remained a mystery, and he still had no idea what new powers Mael might have gained during his bonding with the Hythra.

Mael was dangerous, and not to be trusted, and there was a lot of bad blood between them.

Imril thought about hurling a bolt of power at the bastard’s face, but decided against it. Mael had been decent enough not to touch the pregnant human, Sara, so Imril would hear him out. Besides, he needed information.

“What is this, Mael?” His power flared, surrounding him with a cocoon of golden light. “What do you want?”

Mael frowned. “Brother of mine, just this once, can you quit being so fucking conspicuous? ”

“What are you talking about?” Imril’s left eyebrow twitched in irritation as he rose to his feet, drawing on every shred his self-control just to dampen the tension inside him; anger, violence, lust, surging through his body like an uncontrollable fire.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Esania.

Calm down.

Couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“Look at you, brother, all lit up like an eyrie’s shining beacon in the night. What’s up with you? This isn’t the age of Drakhin anymore. Try a little stealth before you alert the Naaga to our presence.” Mael scoffed. “But subtlety was never your strong point, was it, brother?”

“I’ve never needed to be subtle.” Although Imril’s voice was laced with scorn, he tempered the power crackling through his vir channels, pulling it deep within his body. The light around him disappeared, leaving them in perfect darkness with only the cold wind whistling past. “Since when were you afraid of Naaga?”

“Not afraid, idiot. You’ve got no idea what has happened while you were having your little three-hundred-revolutions long nap, do you?”

“Care to enlighten me, then? Three hundred revolutions and you couldn’t control the situation, Mael? I’m surprised.”

A baleful expression crossed Mael’s dark features. “Tch. I became infected with the virus, just like you. I was weak. Sick. It took a hundred revolutions until I was fully healed. In that time, all I could do was contain the area with my shadow. If I let it fall now, I would release them into the world.” Mael bared his sharp teeth. “I’m not the one who caused this fucking mess. What kind of Overlord ignores infighting between his Lords? You could have stopped it.”

Imril went still, anger and lust freezing in his veins as he remembered the events that led up to Nykithus’s betrayal.

“I could have,” was all he said. But I grew complacent. I didn’t read the signs until it was too late.

Quick-witted, graceful, charming Nykithus had been his favored Lord, and Imril had gifted him the vast kingdom of Ton Malhur, shocking some of the older Lords who’d had their eyes on the rich highlands for hundreds of revolutions.

Petty politics. Backstabbing. Infighting. Whispers and rumors of a successor. Drakhin Lords all vying for his favor.

How tedious and pointless it had all become.

And slowly, he’d become completely and utterly corrupted by his own power.

“Could have, would have, should have,” Mael snarled. “The question is, what are you going to do about it now?” He spat on the ground in disgust. “We are still here, and that moron Nykithus has done the unthinkable. He put his cursed seed into a Naaga and spawned an entire race of hybrids. The little lordling continues to rule over them, thinking he’s you.”

Imril hissed. “I’m surprised you haven’t killed him yet, brother.” Imril’s power flared again as he thought of a hundred different ways he might kill Nykithus the Betrayer. What kind of world had the bastard created in his absence? The younglings—least of all Nykithus—had never respected the old Laws, which he’d created specifically to prevent a situation like this.

One time… just one time, Nykithus had spoken of altering the Naaga’s DNA; making them stronger, more Drakhin-like, less subservient.

They share our blood, Imril, and there are females amongst them. We are all descendants of the Vradhu. What if we could…

Imril had told him never to speak of it again, on pain of death.

Mael’s tail flickered, a sign of his irritation. “You see this shadowveil? It covers all of Ton Malhur, even the Industrial City. Do you know how much concentration it takes to maintain this fucking thing? I don’t have the Hythra at my disposal to hold it in place while I hunt. In order to attack Nykithus, I would have to let it fall. What do you think happens if I do that?” Mael’s black eyes burned, and for a moment, they were twin gateways to the nexus between this dimension and the next. Shit. Sometimes even his own brother gave Imril the creeps. “I’m containing them, brother. I’ve held them under siege for three hundred revolutions, but there are thousands of them, and I am only one man, and unlike you, I am wingless.” He shot Imril an accusing glare. “It was necessary. They have these cursed new technologies.” Mael hissed in disgust. “Vir harvesters. Energy weapons. Poisons. Things that can harm even you and me. But now I grow tired of this, Imril. It’s time to end it. You need to finish what you started.”

Imril stared out at the blackness, at the impossible shadowveil, secretly transfixed by his brother’s power. Nobody except Mael really understood how his power worked. Somehow, he killed energy, killed light, turned it into darkness, into nothing.

But could his brother be trusted?

“Your madness… is it gone?” he asked finally, staring into eyes that were as black as the infinite Universe. Sometimes, he felt that Mael was changing, becoming closer to what their father was; a spectral creature with a direct link to that other dimension.

“It will never be gone,” Mael said softly, “but I can control it now. The Hythra is dead. I have her memories, but she is dead.”

“Finally.”

“Finally.”

Something passed between them then; a moment of shared understanding. Imril went still as hundreds of revolutions of animosity and hatred washed over him. There was a time when they wouldn’t have been able to look each other in the eye like this, when they would have tried to tear each other apart. After he broke free of the Hythra, Mael had been intent on taking away everything Imril had ruled over.

But now there was nothing. No throne, no empire, no Drakhin.

Bit by bit, Imril’s resentment toward Mael faded. It occurred to him that he couldn’t remember exactly what they were fighting about. Ages-old feuds had a way of becoming pointless like that.

He might be stubborn, but he wasn’t crazy. Imril took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to quell the storm that raged inside him. Esania’s perfect face swam and crystallized in his memory, her expression capturing a single emotion.

Hope.

Hope for survival.

Hope that he could be trusted. She wanted to trust him.

For a while, he said nothing as he listened to the howling wind, to the rhythm of this ancient, mysterious planet, where he and Mael were really nothing more than visitors. Khira was here before they were created, and it would be here when they had long turned into stardust.

He remembered his past life, a time of decadence and cruelty and wanton excess.

He would never want Esania to meet that version of him.

Imril swallowed his pride and made a decision. “What do you want me to do, brother?”

If Mael was surprised, he didn’t show it. If the words I-told-you-so were running through his mind, he didn’t speak them. Imril’s twin might be a breath away from madness, but sometimes, he could be surprisingly decent.

“This planet,” Mael said softly, “it has and always will belong to the Vradhu. Our mother’s people. We are the abominations here, the invaders. Or did you somehow forget, brother?”

A sliver of raw pain wound its way through Imril’s heart, mixing with his guilt. “No. I did not forget.” There was a time when he’d tried to forget, when he’d tried to remake his world and erase every trace of the curse that had created them.

Drakhin. Treacherous blood. As time went on, he’d come to detest some of his kin.

He thought of Esania and the way she’d so fiercely protected her tribe, putting her own life in danger for the sake of another.

Putting him to shame.

Beyond the skies of Khira, there was life. A sweet, strange creature called Esania had shown him that, and somehow, this small tribe of humans and their determination to survive made all Drakhin grievances and blood-feuds seem so petty.

He didn’t want to destroy this world, he wanted to build it again.

For her.

“I have held this fucking barrier together for as long as I could, brother. I waited in the hope that you would appear to sort out your own little mess, and it seems you’ve finally come to your senses. Our mother wouldn’t stand for this chaos, Imril.”

“No, she wouldn’t,” Imril said slowly, overcome with sadness and pride as he remembered the magnificent woman who had been his mother. Everything decent in him and Mael was because of her. Acheros had allowed Marial to raise them on the Hythra, but as they grew older, he started to separate them, playing cruel games with the twins and their mother.

Experiments.

Why did Imril get the feeling they were still stuck in some sort of cruel experiment? “I encountered Nykithus beyond the shadowveil,” he growled, studying Mael’s face for any sign of deceit.

“That’s because my barrier is starting to fall apart. I saw him return. Badly wounded. Desperate. He had no choice. Your doing, obviously. I don’t understand why you didn’t kill him when you had the chance.”

“You do not understand what happened.” Imril gritted his teeth. “How did he get out?”

Mael’s tail flicked back and forth, the abrupt tempo a clear sign of his irritation. “There are breaches in the veil. The Naaga have been traveling in and out ever since the first hole appeared, and I am tired. I can’t hold the form anymore.”

“That isn’t like you, brother. Has something changed?”

“None of your fucking business, Imril. For once in your life, just listen to me, and do as I say.” The Shadowbringer shook his head in frustration. “You need to kill Nykithus. Once you cut the head off the monster, the rest will fall. They tried to take command of the Hythra. They poisoned the Ardu-Sai. They are multiplying endlessly, spreading through this world like vermin.”

“To what end?” Imril’s anger returned in full force as he remembered Nykithus’s affinity for power; the way he’d subtly undermined Imril’s advisors and pitted the lesser lords against one another.

“That, my brother, is the eternal question. I have my theories, but I won’t bore you with the details.”

Imril turned, spreading his wings. “Three darklights. That’s all I need, and then we will end this once and for all.”

“Some sort of strategy would be nice,” Mael said, a vicious smile spreading across his face. Now the bastard seemed amused, and Imril thought he detected just a hint of the old madness in the Shadowbringer’s eyes. “Can’t just go in there and torch the entire place, I suppose.”

“Why not?” Imril waved his hand in dismissal. “You leave that to me, brother.” He knew Nykithus, that traitorous bastard. He knew his strengths, his weaknesses, his deepest desires.

Mael laughed. “You haven’t changed, brother.”

And no Drakhin wielded power like Imril, no matter how hard they trained. He was one of two truly monstrous beings on this planet. What the second gen lordlings had failed to understand was that none of them—not even Nykithus—had ever seen Imril at his full strength.

They didn’t know how much vir he could really pack into his monstrous body.

Not even Nykithus, who Imril had once thought of as the son he could never have.

“I will return,” he said to his still-smiling brother as he spread his wings wide.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Imril launched himself into the air and soared, desperate to get back to his Esania. He was about to demand a lot of her, but she was strong enough to handle him, and when she understood what he was about to do, she would give him what he needed.

After all, the survival of her race depended on it.